That headline was a lame attempt at tying Salty and battery and making it sound like assault and battery. Sorry.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia has been hitting way below the Mendoza line (.158 over the last two months) and striking out at an alarming rate. He’s making Mark Bellhorn look like a contact hitter in retrospect. Wednesday night he took some major steam out of a rally inning by hitting into a double play.

When I went to spring training in March I saw four players who looked not only promising, they looked better than the incumbent player on the major league roster. They were: 3rd baseman Will Middlebrooks, shortstop Pedro Ciriaco, 1st baseman Lars Anderson and catcher Ryan Lavarnway. Since coming up Middlebrooks and Ciriaco have been as good as they looked in March. Lars just got traded to Cleveland because Adrian Gonzalez isn’t going anywhere. Now, Ryan Lavarnway got his callup because of Salty’s problems. He started behind the plate last night.

Lavarnway went to Yale, as did lefty reliever Craig Breslow, just re-acquired this week at the trade deadline. So, if Bobby V brings in Breslow to relieve Felix Dubront tonight, we will have the first all-Yale battery in the history of Major League Baseball.

Oh, one more thing. In March I also saw Andrew Bailey in action just prior to his injury. Unlike the aforementioned four, Bailey did not look good at all. He came in to start the 6th(?) and proceeded to give up six straight hits. I remember thinking, “This is our replacement for Papelbon? Yikes.” Ciriaco wound up winning that game in the 10th with a walk-off homer over the jetBlue Park green monster.